A Close Run Thing

by Allan Mallinson

  He knocked at the door. It was opened by a woman of thirty years (perhaps fewer) in a black crêpe dress, her long black hair tied up with a black ribbon and jet slides. All his preparation was suddenly to no avail. ‘I … that is, would you be Mrs Strange?’ he stammered.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, with the rising note which turned the simple affirmation into a question.

  ‘Mrs Strange,’ he began, trying hard to recall the sequence of information he had practised, ‘I am Lieutenant Hervey of the Sixth Light Dragoons, your husband’s regiment.’

  He paused. She looked at him coolly. Would any officer bring ought but bad news? ‘He is dead?’ she asked simply.

  Standing in the open door of a cottage on a busy quayside was not how Hervey had imagined this would be. ‘I am very sorry but it is so, Mrs Strange. May I come in?’

  She listened in silence as he recounted the events of 18 June. He had resolved beforehand that he would attempt to explain the significance of what her late husband had done, notwithstanding his oath of silence to Wellington, for surely a widow deserved no less. And, further, if she did not grasp the significance of their mission that day, then she could not be expected to understand why he had abandoned her husband. And without understanding how might she be expected to absolve him?

  ‘Would you like some tea, Mr Hervey?’ she asked at length.

  He was pleased to accept, for it seemed that such a gesture might indeed betoken some understanding. It offered him, too, the opportunity to consult the notes he had made previously, yet without which he had so far had to conduct this most difficult of counsels. Her calmness, her dignity, had all but dumbfounded him. He had heard of soldiers’ widows seizing knives and having to be restrained from doing themselves injury. But Mrs Strange had received the news as well – better even – than Margaret Edmonds. And she had called him Mr, not Lieutenant. Here, indeed, was a sign of some … cultivation, some knowledge of affairs. She spoke, too, without Strange’s Suffolk accent. She spoke without any accent. An educated, rather than a refined, voice but alien, surely, to the fishermen’s wharf? Strange had been a fine-looking man, of that there was no doubt. What might he have been – forty? forty-five? But she was so much younger, and in different society Hervey might even have called her beautiful. She had cheekbones as high as the most fashionable of the ladies he had seen in Paris – as high as Henrietta Lindsay’s. Large brown eyes, set perfectly apart, had the look of warmth and intelligence. Her hair, though he thought it certain never to have had the attention of a lady’s maid, shone with hale condition.

  He found his place in his notes. ‘There will be a little money, Mrs Strange – not a lot, I fear. It is customary when a soldier dies for his companions to auction his personal effects, and they by tradition bid generously. Many of his possessions are still in Ireland, of course, but those he took with him into the field have raised a little over forty pounds.’

  ‘That is a worthy sum,’ she conceded.

  ‘There is also the prize-money for Waterloo.’

  She looked puzzled.

  ‘After a battle the Army’s agents assess the value of the enemy’s equipment which has been captured,’ he explained, ‘and this is divided pro rata, that is to say—’

  ‘I understand pro rata.’ She said it kindly, though it did not prevent his feeling awkward.

  ‘This amounts to £19 4s 4d,’ he hastened, looking down at his notebook. ‘There is regimental prize-money of £37 3s 8d, and arrears of pay amounting to £42 2s 3d. With various other payments, your late husband’s estate amounts to £189 7s 8d. There is a full account here, Mrs Strange, and, if you feel able to sign this certificate, I have a banker’s draft which will enable you to withdraw the money at any time.’ He did not, however, explain that the ‘various other payments’ were his own share of the Waterloo prize-money.

  ‘Mr Hervey,’ she began, ‘I am most touched that you yourself should have troubled to make this journey. I sense that you feel responsible to some degree for my husband’s death, and that this might in some measure account for your coming to Southwold. I know nothing of battles, of course, but I do understand that judgements must be made in an instant and that afterwards there is infinite time in which to reappraise them. Is there any purpose in such reflection, though? I am greatly touched, too, that my late husband’s fellow men should have been so generous in raising such an amount, and I should like very much to write and express that gratitude. Would you be able to take such a letter?’

  ‘Yes, of course I would, ma’am.’ Ma’am seemed as appropriate as if she had been—

  ‘Oh,’ she then added distractedly, ‘but I have no writing paper.’

  ‘There is writing paper at the Swan hotel, where I am staying, Mrs Strange. You would be most welcome to dine there and to write your letter before, or subsequently, in peaceful surroundings.’

  She seemed relieved. It was curious, he thought, how things of little consequence assumed such importance at these times (Margaret Edmonds had been likewise distressed at having sent away her cook for the day).

  ‘I shall dine at three, then, for I intend walking by the sea a while, with your leave, ma’am.’

  He walked by the sea for three hours. And he swam, too. It had been close on eight years since he had swum in the sea, and on the last occasion – at Corunna – he had done so for his life. The peace of the day (for the beach was empty but for seabirds), and Mrs Strange’s absolution, now contrived in him such contentment that he could not otherwise remember, and he lay in the warm sun and thought of Henrietta (and a homecoming that few could hope to enjoy) until it was time to return to the Swan.

  At five past three the chaise he had sent for her drew up to the inn, and Mrs Strange stepped down. Hervey met her at the door, and they went straight to the Swan’s dining room, a place of some elegance, if a little old-fashioned by the standards he had lately seen in Paris. Mrs Strange made some admiring remark of the furnishings: though she had lived in Southwold for fifteen years, this was her first essay to the hotel. This intrigued him, for it seemed likely that a woman of her refinement might at least have taken tea there even if money for anything more substantial had been wanting. ‘It is only that temperance denied us access, Mr Hervey,’ she revealed when he pressed her.

  She studied the bill of fare intently, and, with her eyes so occupied, Hervey found himself admiring her form. She wore a dress of cotton velvet (green, not mourning), even though the day was warm. Its waist was lower than was the fashion – lower, indeed, than had been the fashion for some years – yet it was unquestionably a dress made by a skilled seamstress. Its neck was high, and she wore a necklace of jet. She was fuller-bosomed, fuller-mouthed than Henrietta, and she put him in mind of a portrait on the grand staircase at Longleat House, a painting he had many a time gazed at as a boy – Reynolds’s subject a picture of inaccessible allure.

  ‘Do you have any family, Mrs Strange?’ he asked as she looked up.

  ‘No, Mr Hervey; my mother died many years ago and my father likewise almost seven years past, just after Corunna.’

  ‘Why do you say Corunna, ma’am? It is an uncommon reference, is it not?’

  ‘It was after Corunna that Harry came home to Southwold on furlough. He was a devout worshipper at the chapel of which my father was minister, as was his family. When my father died … well, I was quite alone; there was nowhere for me to go. Harry was a corporal and asked me to marry him. I think he did so out of kindness: we hardly knew each other. He was the finest of men –strong, gentle, dutiful. I came to live with his parents and continued to teach at the school. These past two years, though, both his father and his mother have been largely unwell and I have spent all my time, in consequence, nursing them both. They were so good to me, it was no hardship – well, perhaps a little tiring.’

  Hervey paused before putting to her the concern that now troubled him as a man as much as an officer. ‘Forgive my directness, Mrs Strange, but how straitened will your circumstances be?’
(With only two hundred pounds she might purchase an annuity of, say, fifteen pounds at most – hardly enough to keep even the cottage roof over her head. And it would go intolerably hard with such a woman.)

  ‘I have some savings, sir: Harry sent home the major part of his pay, and there was a little family money. But I should not remain inactive even with sufficient income – though I will not be a governess. I used to keep my father’s school before he became ill. I might do likewise again.’

  To Hervey the solution was at once manifest. Not a fortnight before, he had received a letter from Elizabeth expressing her anxiety for her father’s school, at her own in expertise and the exhaustion it wrought in him. ‘You find being a schoolma’am not objectionable, then, Mrs Strange?’ he enquired.

  ‘No, indeed, though there is little opportunity of an opening hereabout.’

  ‘Just so,’ he agreed. ‘See here, Mrs Strange, my father is vicar of a small parish in Wiltshire. He is having great trouble in maintaining his school for the village children. My sister helps but cannot spare all the time that is needed. There is a cottage set aside for a schoolmaster, and although the stipend is very small I think it might be adequate. You are, I believe, the very sort of person my father has need of.’

  ‘Mr Hervey,’ she smiled, ‘you are most kind, but you forget perhaps that my father was a dissenting minister. I hardly think it fitting for me—’

  Hervey was undeterred, and stayed her protest. ‘Mrs Strange, my father has need of someone to instruct the children of the village in the elements of reading and writing, and in those of mathematics. I am sure that you can contrive to do that without offending against too many of the Thirty-Nine Articles!’ he laughed.

  ‘But I should be obliged to attend his church, should I not?’

  ‘John Wesley would have approved of piety wherever he found it, think you not, ma’am? But there is, indeed, an independent chapel in the village if the parish church were not fulfilling.’

  She laughed. ‘I think we need not be so solemn! And how shall I apply for this position?’

  ‘That much I can do for you myself,’ he replied. ‘When might you be able to take up those duties, ma’am?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘It will take me a week or so to conclude all that needs be done here,’ she said, ‘but then I should be ready. Sad as it will be to leave this place after so many years, it has now more unhappy memories than I should wish.’

  ‘“Thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto a people which thou knewest not here to fore!”’

  ‘The Moabitess?’ she said, returning the smile. ‘But Ruth had a Naomi from whom to draw strength, whereas I have not.’

  He smiled again. ‘You will at least find my sister agreeable, but I am afraid that for Horningsham it will be a long drive, Mrs Strange – first London, then Salisbury.’

  ‘Or a pleasant cruise from here to Portsmouth perhaps?’ she replied.

  He laughed again. ‘You are right, ma’am. I am but a landsman, and regard the sea only as a barrier.’ He liked this keenness of wit. It reminded him of Caithlin. ‘Mrs Strange, the day is warm and I have taken much exercise: would you find it offensive if I took a little hock?’

  ‘Not in the least, sir,’ she replied at once. ‘And I, if I may, shall join you, for it was never by my own pledge that we were a temperance household, only out of respect for my family and then for Harry – which, I may assure you, is no less diminished now.’

  ‘I did not suppose it for an instant, ma’am,’ he replied.

  XVIII

  THE INTERESTS OF THE SERVICE

  Horningsham, Wednesday 9 August

  IT WAS A little before ten o’clock, and the morning was already hot, when a coach drawn by two quality middleweight greys drew up to Horningsham vicarage. The horses were not fresh, their shoulders were in a lather and the dappling on their quarters was accentuated by prodigious sweating. The coachman himself looked no fresher, his face grimy and his shirt almost black with the dust of the road. Down from the carriage stepped a tall man in his mid-twenties wearing white breeches, court shoes and the long-tailed coat of a Foot Guards officer, for all the world looking as if he were alighting in St James’s Palace yard to attend a levee. After stretching stiff limbs, brushing the dust from his shoulders and placing his cocked hat under his arm, he exchanged a few words with the coachman and walked towards the house. Vexed that no servant had appeared to assist with the horses, he was already disposed to some disdain of it. Here was no classical architect’s expertise, for sure; rather, was it the haphazard work of successive country builders. The oriel window was quite fine, he conceded, and there was about it a quaint charm, but the house did not betoken a well-endowed living: of that he was certain. He pulled the bell rope at the door, self-consciously adjusted the aiglets on his right shoulder and waited for an answer. At length (too great a length, he considered), it was opened by Francis, stooping more than usually, who after the officer’s introduction, which he did not fully hear, showed him into the vicar of Horningsham’s modest library.

  Francis was now in something of quandary, for the Reverend Thomas Hervey was at the school and his wife was with him. Elizabeth was taking a walk, and the only member of the family at home was engaged in what Francis judged to be an affair long overdue. This visitor from … (he had not quite heard) could not, in calling unannounced, presume upon him therefore. ‘It may be some time before anyone is at home,’ he said. To which the officer replied that he would wait indefinitely.

  Meanwhile, in the drawing room, the overdue affair was reaching some conclusion. ‘And that is why I am late in coming here,’ explained Matthew Hervey. He was seated on a long settee, with Henrietta a further distance along it than he would have liked, and he was recounting, though not without interruption, his movements during the past momentous six weeks. ‘Believe me, I should not have been spared from garrison duties in Paris had it not been for these other necessities.’

  ‘Well, Matthew dearest,’ began Henrietta with a wry smile, ‘I should never have supposed that the profession of arms brought such intercourse, and with so many ladies of evident charm and accomplishments. It seems such a pity that the unhappy circumstances of these encounters should otherwise mar the enjoyment of them.’

  He hesitated. There was no mistaking the challenge that her smile belied. ‘Madam,’ he began (for her name was still not habitual with him), ‘do not think for an instant that …’ But it would have been better had he hesitated a little longer before beginning, and then he might have finished his protest with resolution.

  ‘Think what, sir?’ she demanded, her eyebrows arched high. ‘Think that you might take some pleasure in feminine company?’

  ‘No … well, that is …’ he stammered.

  ‘No, you do not take such pleasure? Or no, I should not think it?’

  There was a knock at the door, and Hervey could not conceal his relief when Francis appeared. ‘Begging your pardon, Master Matthew and your Ladyship, but there is an officer waiting to see someone.’

  ‘An officer?’ asked Hervey uncertainly. ‘To see me?’

  ‘I don’t rightly know, sir; I’m sorry as I didn’t quite discern what the gentleman said.’

  Hervey looked at Henrietta, who smiled. ‘Perhaps, Matthew, if you were to receive him, his purpose might be revealed? I do not suppose it will be any great mystery.’

  Francis announced their visitor with as much recall as he was able. The name ‘Howard’ was all that Hervey could glean from this fumbled introduction, but he knew him at once to be a lieutenant of Foot Guards and general’s aide-de-camp. But he could not begin to imagine what might bring St James’s to Horningsham. ‘Good morning to you, Mr Howard,’ he said, offering his hand, though the officer seemed a trifle reluctant to take it. ‘How may we assist you?’

  And equally reluctant did he seem to reveal his purpose, so that Henrietta, losing patience, felt it necessary to reassure him: ‘
Sir, do not suppose that I shall reveal the secrets of the Horse Guards to the French – or even to the people of Wiltshire!’

  The officer cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘Mr Hervey, you will recall delivering a dispatch from his grace the Duke of Wellington to the Horse Guards two weeks past?’

  ‘Of course,’ replied Hervey.

  ‘And you did not await an acknowledgement.’

  ‘No – I did not expect one.’

  ‘You did not expect one, Mr Hervey? Were you not on his grace’s business?’

  ‘Not so; that is … not directly.’ Even as he answered he felt a gnawing doubt. At the time his business seemed clear enough; now he was less certain. ‘I was on an assignment as regards regimental affairs and carried the dispatch as a supplementary duty. The clerk at the Horse Guards showed no urgency to attend to it. I had other matters to be about.’

  ‘Just so, Mr Hervey,’ replied the officer coolly. ‘I am commanded to request that you accompany me to the Horse Guards immediately.’

  A request by a senior officer, conveyed as it was by an ADC, was to all intents and purposes an order. A moment’s impatience with the headquarters clerk and it had come to this: for an instant he supposed he might next be asked for his sword. Was it, he wondered, the curse of Slade?

  ‘Immediately, did you say?’ snapped Henrietta, making Hervey start almost as much as the officer. ‘You must understand that it is quite impossible!’

  ‘Madam,’ he began, ‘I understand that it might not be to your convenience, but I have the most explicit instructions to insist that Mr Hervey accompany me. The adjutant-general himself—’

  ‘Sir, it is indeed no little inconvenience, for Mr Hervey and I are to be married this coming month!’

  Hervey was dumbfounded. He looked at the officer with blank astonishment, and then again at Henrietta.

  ‘Is that not what we were speaking of this very moment past, Matthew?’ she challenged.

  A minor commotion in the hall signalled the return of the vicar of Horningsham and his lady. Hervey’s mother bustled into the drawing room with loud protests that her absence at the school had been in the ignorance of her visitor’s calling. ‘My dear,’ she gushed to Henrietta, ‘why did not you tell us you were to call – and today of all days when cook is at her sister’s?’